Adjunct apparatus for increasing network transmission capacity provides a low-cost, efficient solution for increasing the network transmission capacity of the existing telephone circuit switched network, while keeping the current network equipment unchanged. A Local Switch Network (LSN) Adjunct (LSNA) and a Tandem/Toll Switch Network (TSN) Adjunct (TSNA) interface with standard network elements, such as switches and cross connect equipment. These network adjuncts, comprising a set of low-bit rate speech coders, a dynamic timeslot manager and other supporting functions, advantageously transmit to and receive from a T1/T3/OC3/E1 trunk. More than one channel of voice is carried on one 64 Kbps DS0 timeslot, while still maintaining the voice at toll quality. A sub-timeslot and sub-timeslot bundling are introduced in the standard T1 or E1 frame where each sub-timeslot is analogous to a single bit of the typical eight bit word to provide more than 24 or 30 voice channels respectively. Inband control information is generated for carrying over a T1 or E1 trunk, for example, for mapping sub-timeslot bundles to channels. Conventional out-of-band signaling is provided via SS-7 or other out-of-band signaling system.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A telephone circuit switched network with dynamically allocable bandwidth, comprising: a plurality of local switch network adjuncts; a plurality of tandem switch network adjuncts, one of said tandem switch network adjuncts being connected to one of said local switch network adjuncts and being further connected to a tandem switch; a plurality of toll switch network adjuncts, one of said toll switch network adjuncts being connected to one of said tandem switch network adjuncts and being further connected to a toll switch; wherein said local switch network adjuncts, said tandem switch network adjuncts, and said toll switch network adjuncts communicate information using reformatted frame sub-timeslots, wherein a network adjunct connected to a local switch, comprises: a trunk interface handler interconnected to said network; a detector connected to the said trunk interface handler, said detector for discriminating fax and modem data from voice data and activity associated with a channel; a speech coder selector coupled to said detector for selecting a coder for a specific communication; at least one speech coder connected to said speech coder selector, said coder for encoding voice data; a speech decoder connected to said speech coder selector, said speech decoder for decoding voice data; a dynamic timeslot manager connected to said speech encoder and said speech decoder, said timeslot manager for assembling said encoded data into sub-timeslots and extracting data from sub-timeslots; an adjunct control and protocol handler connected to said dynamic timeslot manager, said handler for formatting an inband control message; and a management interface for managing elements of said network adjunct.
2. A network adjunct as recited in claim 1 wherein said activity comprises one of voice activity and trunk group activity.
3. A telephone circuit switched network with dynamically allocable bandwidth, comprising: a plurality of local switch network adjuncts; a plurality of tandem switch network adjuncts, one of said tandem switch network adjuncts being connected to one of said local switch network adjuncts and being further connected to a tandem switch; a plurality of toll switch network adjuncts, one of said toll switch network adjuncts being connected to one of said tandem switch network adjuncts and being further connected to a toll switch; wherein said local switch network adjuncts, said tandem switch network adjuncts, and said toll switch network adjuncts communicate information using reformatted frame sub-timeslots, wherein a network adjunct connected to one of a tandem or a toll switch comprises: a trunk interface handler connected to said network; a dynamic timeslot manager for allocating encoded data to sub-timeslots and extracting data from sub-timeslots; a silence filler and remover controller connected to said dynamic timeslot manager, said silence filler and remover controller for adding silence data to compressed voice data and removing silence data from compressed voice data; an adjunct control and protocol handler connected to said dynamic timeslot manager for formatting the inband control message; and a management interface for managing elements of said network adjunct.
4. A telephone circuit switched network with dynamically allocable bandwidth, comprising: a plurality of local switch network adjuncts; a plurality of tandem switch network adjuncts, one of said tandem switch network adjuncts being connected to one of said local switch network adjuncts and being further connected to a tandem switch; a plurality of toll switch network adjuncts, one of said toll switch network adjuncts being connected to one of said tandem switch network adjuncts and being further connected to a toll switch; wherein said local switch network adjuncts, said tandem switch network adjuncts, and said toll switch network adjuncts communicate information using reformatted frame sub-timeslots, wherein each local switch network adjunct comprises: a trunk interface handler interconnected to said network; a detector interconnected to said trunk interface handler, said detector for discriminating fax and modem data from voice data and for detecting activity associated with a channel; a speech coder selector connected to said detector, said selector for assigning a coder to a specific communication; a speech encoder connected to said speech coder selector, said speech encoder for encoding the voice data; a dynamic timeslot manager connected to said speech encoder and said speech decoder, said manager for allocating said encoded data to sub-timeslots and extracting data from sub-timeslots; an adjunct control and protocol handler connected to said dynamic timeslot manager, said handler for formatting an inband control message; and a management interface for managing elements of said network adjunct.
5. A network as recited in claim 4 wherein said activity comprises one of trunk group activity and voice activity.
6. The network of claim 4, wherein said local switch network adjunct further comprises: a first connection to a local switch to which it is connected; and a second connection to a tandem switch.
7. The network of claim 4, wherein each network adjunct of one of a toll or tandem switch comprises: a trunk interface handler connected to said network; a dynamic timeslot manager for allocating said encoded data to sub-timeslots and extracting data from sub-timeslots; a silence filler and remover controller connected to said dynamic timeslot manager for adding silence data to compressed voice data and removing silence data from compressed voice data; an adjunct control and protocol handler connected to said dynamic timeslot manager for formatting the inband control message; and a management interface for managing elements of said network adjunct.
8. The network of claim 4, wherein each network adjunct connected to a tandem switch comprises: a first connection to a network adjunct connected to a local switch that said tandem switch serves; a second connection to each network adjunct connected to a tandem switch that serves said tandem switch; and a third connection to each network adjunct connected to a toll switch that serves said tandem switch.
9. The network of claim 4, wherein a network adjunct connected to a toll switch comprises: a first connection to another network adjunct connected to a tandem switch that serves said toll switch; and a second connection to another network adjunct connected to a toll switch that serves said toll switch.
10. The network of claim 4, wherein each network adjunct connected to a tandem switch handles all inband traffic received by said tandem switch.
11. The network of claim 4, wherein each network adjunct connected to a toll switch handles all inband traffic received by said toll switch.
12. The network of claim 4, wherein each network adjunct connected to a local switch handles all inband traffic received by said tandem switch.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
September 13, 1999
November 6, 2001
Browse 5M+ US patents with plain-English claim translations and AI-generated analysis.